Microsoft has since apologised for the comments, with The Atlantic Wirecarrying this apology from Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios:

"Yesterday, during the Xbox E3 briefing, one of our employees made an off the cuff and inappropriate comment while demoing ‘Killer Instinct’ with another employee. This comment was offensive and we apologize."

The expected amount of online outrage and apathy are now playing out in the usual fora.

The incident is Microsoft's third very public sexism gaffe in the last year. First came a limp wedding tackle joke in Norway. A Microsoft developer was later found to have used the hexadecimal string “0xB16B00B5” - which is often read as “Big Boobs” in the Linux kernel. ®